ASTI is proud to announce the launch of its new website, loaded with easy-to-use tools for viewing, comparing, and downloading key agricultural R&D information.These new tools allow you to:

Rank and compare the status and direction of agricultural research investment and capacity across countries in Africa south of the Sahara, West Asia and North Africa, and Central America and the Caribbean.

Access detailed national-level trends in agricultural research investment and human resources, and download factsheets and other information on interactive country pages.

Explore in-depth datasets for a large number of low-and middle-income countries in the data download tool.

All of these interactive tools are available on a clean, newly redesigned website that—thanks to ASTI’s new backend coding system—is automatically updated with new data regularly.Watch a video tutorial on how to engage with interactive data, compare countries and regions, and download custom datasets.

TheAgricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI)website is home to a new feature. ASTI has extracted the most relevant and consistent data from CGIAR centers’ annual reports to make it more accessible for reporting and analysis for those interested in the CGIAR’s financial and staffing evolution.

Detailed information on staffing, funding, and expenditures of individual CGIAR centers and the CGIAR system as a whole are now available in a series of interactive graphs and data downloads, providing visual insights into the evolution of the CGIAR system. This information was previously only available online in the PDF versions of the CGIAR annual financial reports.

ASTI supports the current CGIAR Open Access and Data Management Policy, which was established and adopted in November 2013, falling in line with scaling up good practice of making the current data more easily available. The CGIAR datasets will be maintained and updated by ASTI depending on funding availability.

DIIVA stands for Diffusion and Impact of Improved Varieties in Africa, a project that collected data on improved crop varieties in Africa south of the Sahara. The three featured databases on adoption, varietal releases, and the scientific strength of breeding programs, organized around a set of 154 crop-country combinations (across 21 crops and 29 countries). The databases are hosted by the ASTI web site. (www.asti.cgiar.org)

Why is DIIVA relevant?

The steady uptake and turnover of crop varieties is key to supporting increases in food production in Africa and creating a trampoline effect of green agriculture in Africa and supporting increases in food production Yet despite the efforts of agricultural researchers in crop improvement in the region, the current knowledge of the diffusion of improved crop varieties is patchy at best.

The data and analysis generated through the DIIVA project closes this salient knowledge gap. It provides information on the effectiveness of each of crop improvement systems in delivering modern varieties to farmers, and provides insights into means to improve the way that the CGIAR and the African national agricultural research institutions can work together more effectively.

DIIVA and ASTI data interaction

ASTI is expanding its website with other databases related to agricultural R&D in developing countries, such as DIIVA. By hosting the DIIVA website, visitors will be able to link the adoption and release of specific crops and countries with the overall status of agricultural R&D in the near future when ASTI releases its updated dataset for the region (planned for spring 2014). For example, adoption of various maize varieties in Tanzania can be compared with the country’s allocation of research resources to maize.

What were the DIIVA findings?

According to the CGIAR, “Output in the form of released varieties is increasing for most crops, but is still characterized by a high level of instability from year to year.” Overall adoption of improved varieties across the countries and crops of Africa south of the Sahara is estimated at 35%, but masking significant variation across crops. This represents steady progress when compared to prior estimates from the early 2000s.

Furthermore, during the discussion of substantive results in the sections on varietal output, adoption, and change, the DIIVA project has also had its share of surprises. For example, “Prominent among these unexpected findings are the increasing demand for maize OPVs in West Africa, the steady productivity record of cassava in the face of well-documented resource scarcity, and the advanced age of cultivars in the expanding soybean crop in Nigeria.”

In a recent event which focused on capacity development for agricultural research, Rob Bertram of USAID stated that, “…without capacity being developed in our partner countries, the likelihood that our investments are going to last over time and perpetuate themselves is going to be reduced or compromised.”

National agricultural research systems (NARS), according to USAID, are the backbone of an agricultural innovation system and include all public, semi-public, and private agricultural R&D in a country, including universities, government laboratories, private sector research, and NGO or producer-led research enterprises.

In the early 90’s agriculture and food dropped off the radars of many governments and donors and as a result, funding for agricultural R&D and human resource development stagnated and became highly volatile – resulting in a roller coaster effect for many countries dependent on donors for funding. Underinvestment can be seen in many of the low-income countries of Africa, as detailed by Nienke Beintema’s presentation at the event. Although overall investment and capacity have increased in Africa south of the Sahara, researchers struggle with low salaries, lack of training, and few resources to support the operating and capital costs of research in most countries.

The Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative led by IFPRI, provides up-to-date quantitative and qualitative data and analyses on investment, capacity, and institutional trends in agricultural research and development (R&D) in low- and middle-income countries that will assist R&D managers and policymakers in improved policy formulation and decision making at national, regional, and international levels.

Coincidentally, the theme for the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) Africa Science Week Conference in Accra is: Africa feeding Africa through Agricultural Science and Innovation. In the blog post “I am young, agriculture is not for me,” author Margaret Bulambu explains the need to attract the next generation to agriculture as a career. Building capacity in the next generation of young Africans, and creating opportunities that take into account the needs and interests of the current round of students will be a necessary investment to keep agricultural R&D and food security sustainable for the future.

Global challenges, including the recent food and financial crises and climate change, highlight the need for continued and scaled-up investments in agricultural R&D. Following a decade of slow growth in the 1990s, global public spending on agricultural R&D increased by 22 percent from 2000 to 2008—from $26.1 billion to $31.7 billion.

Middle-income countries have been the main drivers of global growth in recent years; spending growth in high-income countries stalled. China and India accounted for nearly half the global increase, but spending also rose significantly in a number of other middle-income countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Iran, Nigeria, and Russia. Growth was particularly strong from 2005 to 2008.

Most notably in Brazil and China, long-term government commitment to agricultural R&D and a supportive policy environment have fueled increased agricultural productivity, as well as overall economic growth. These productivity gains demonstrate the benefits of sustained government investments.

Although agricultural research spending continued to grow in low-income countries overall from 2000 to 2008, in many, spending stagnated or declined. These countries, particularly in Africa south of the Sahara, are highly vulnerable to volatile research funding, often the result of the short-term, project-oriented nature of donor and development bank funding. Additionally, R&D agencies in these countries lack the necessary human, operating, and infrastructure resources to successfully develop, adopt, and disseminate science and technology innovations.

“You can’t manage it if you haven’t measured it.”That is certainly true for investments in agricultural R&D. Countries that put more resources into agricultural innovation are better positioned to raise farm productivity to meet future food needs.

IFPRI’s Insightsmagazine (June 14) uses a scorekeeper analogy to describe ASTI’s role in tracking global spending on agricultural R&D. With ASTI indicators, politicians, R&D managers, farmer organizations, and the scientific community can compare how their country is doing, relative to others.

Some of the latest numbers are worrisome. ASTI’s 2012 global report (slated for release in October) may show a widening gap between countries that spend big on agricultural innovation and those that don’t.

“Many developing countries are seeing rapid population growth. More mouths need to be fed, and every hectare needs to be more productive,” says ASTI program coordinator Gert-Jan Stads. Agricultural research may be the only way to win the game.

Nature published a special article todayon the role of agricultural science in addressing future food security. An accompanying graphic to "Food: The growing problem" presents the latest ASTI data on agricultural R&D expenditures. The article points out that total agricultural R&D investment of $25 billion accounts for only 5 percent of all science R&D spending and that increased investment will be critical to improving agricultural productivity.

Further investments are urgently needed for human capacity building at universities and R&D agencies to redress the decline in researcher capacity caused by an aging workforce and brain-drain. [Read more...]